


Last Home

by M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)



Category: Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Night On Fic Mountain 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/pseuds/M%20J%20Holyoke
Summary: Raistlin is there for Caramon . . . even when Caramon does not remember it.





	Last Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jadeile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadeile/gifts).



“Ugh, go away. Leave me alone.”

Caramon Majere attempted to lever himself upright. The pain knocked him back flat.

An entire army of dwarves was marching along the inside his skull. He swore he could almost _see_ the sunlight reflected off of the steel of their axes and onto the insides of his eyelids. He half-wished that they’d just hit him with those axes properly and put him out of his misery. If that army of dwarves were to break his head apart, it couldn’t possibly hurt any worse than . . . than . . .

“Hey! Hey, Raist,” Caramon muttered, “my head is _killing_ me here! Do you have anything to . . . any herbs or anything that would . . . um . . .”

No response.

“Um, Raist?”

No response again. No response, that is, save the rhythmic pounding of dwarfish boots on top of his temples.

Caramon cracked one eye open.

Oh. Oh, right. For a moment, he’d actually forgotten.

He wasn’t on the road with his twin. He wasn’t even on the road. Nor was he in a comfortable bed, unfortunately. He was, rather, on the floor—face down on the barroom floor of the Inn of the Last Home—and that floor felt suspiciously cold and sticky, like someone had vomited on it before Caramon had not made use of his best judgment and adjudged the floor suitable for sleeping on.

And now, Caramon could hear the sounds of movement coming from the ceiling above him. Those sounds meant Tika was awake and moving about and getting ready to start her day. It would be better, much, much better for both of them, if Tika did not find Caramon on the barroom floor, much better, in fact, if Tika did not find Caramon at all—

“Good morning.”

No such luck.

“The floor needs to be mopped and swept before we open for the first customers of the day, Caramon,” Tika said. “So you need to get out of my way.”

His wife’s tone of voice was even and perfectly calm, and Caramon knew exactly what that meant: If he didn’t get up off the floor now—right now—things were about to get very, _very_ bad for him. As in, irreparably bad. As in—

“—if you place a cracked copper piece’s worth of value on your life, Caramon Majere”—Tika had not stopped talking even though Caramon had briefly stopped listening—“you will get up off my floor in three, two, _one_ —”

“All right. All right!” Caramon forced himself upright, his head spinning like a wagon wheel, his knees threatening to buckle. He lurched and crashed gut-first into a table, all the air whooshing out of his lungs as he nearly passed out from the pain, but he managed to keep himself from falling again. He gasped and wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

“The potatoes are already peeled.” Tika’s voice had softened. “If you’d like some fried up for breakfast, I could—”

“Never mind,” Caramon muttered as he stumbled and lurched toward the door. He was in no mood or condition for a direct, protracted confrontation this morning. “I’ll figure something out myself.”

He was gone from the Inn before he heard anything more from Tika, and half-descending, half-tumbling down the stairs spiraling around the trunk of the Inn’s mighty vallenwood before he was even consciously aware of having gone outside.

Once he realized he was outside and at ground level, though, Caramon figured he might as well stay outside and on the ground. He was in no condition to walk around, though, and the only likely place to go and sit at this early hour of the morning was The Trough. Where he’d just been last night—the last time he could remember being anywhere in particular, that is.

The Trough was open, as Caramon had anticipated, and the hard drinkers like himself were already beginning to gather. His favored table in a shadowy corner close to the bar was still available, however, so he maneuvered his awkward bulk through the cramped, narrow space and plopped himself heavily down into the seat. The chair creaked but held.

The barkeep brought him his drink without him having to call for it. The cup didn’t look especially clean, but given that dwarf spirits were powerful enough to sterilize pretty much any surface they touched (best not to think about what they did to human stomachs), Caramon wasn’t concerned with cleanliness.

The first gulp burned his lips, his mouth, his throat, filling his insides with the heat of dragonfire. The second gulp swept away the pain of his headache and dropped a gauzy veil over his thoughts, his unpleasant memories. The third seemed to mute the pain in his soul, the ragged, gaping, weeping hole of loss where Raist—

Caramon’s cup was empty. He called for another round. The barkeep was quick to oblige one of his best customers.

He called for another, and another. And another. Still, another. He was floating. By the time The Trough had filled and another patron had been forced by the crowd to join Caramon at his table, he was beyond caring.

The patron at Caramon’s table was a stranger, heavily cloaked and unrecognizable. Caramon couldn’t see his features beneath his hood, which was drawn up despite the close, heated quarters of The Trough. The stranger’s sleeves were so long that not even his hands were visible.

Belatedly, Caramon noticed that the stranger was not himself drinking. “Who’re you,” he slurred. “Why’re you here?”

“I’m waiting for someone,” the stranger said simply.

“Oh? Who’s that? Maybe I can help . . .”

But the stranger sat back in his chair and did not reply, and he did not take Caramon up on his offer. With a shrug and a boozy belch, Caramon called for more dwarf spirits. He was teetering on the edge of an alcohol-induced blackout, of sweet, sweet oblivion . . .

The next time that Caramon was aware of his surroundings, he was in his own bed in the Inn, the one Tika had assigned him after she’d started refusing to share a room with him. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there, which wasn’t unusual, but what _was_ unusual was that his head didn’t hurt.

And, and . . . he’d had the most wonderful dream. _Raistlin had come home, and the twins were together again._ They had been holding each other tightly, cradling each other against all the terrors of the night, as they had when they were children. The darkness had felt safe and soft, like velvet. In fact, Caramon could almost smell the rose petals and the bat guano and . . .

“Raist,” Caramon whispered.

No. _No._ It was only a dream. Wishful thinking. The pain of loss blossomed anew in his heart, bright and sharp, far, far worse than any hangover—and only fresh dwarf spirits would dull it.


End file.
